Just a Little Gossip
by treblegnome
Summary: Tyrion and Shae have a conversation about Sansa.


Tyrion and Shae lay under the covers on Tyrion's bed. They had been silent for quite some time when Shae finally spoke up.

"What's wrong my lion? You seem sad." She snuggled closer to him.

"It's just nothing...I was just reflecting on how life isn't fair."

"Isn't fair to who? To peasants and whores, or to Lords and Kings?"

"Isn't fair to Sansa." He got up from the bed and went to the table, pouring himself a glass of wine. "I at least have someone to be with when I'm lonely. The poor innocent girl has lost her family and isn't able to trust anyone in this damned city to care for her."

"She isn't quite so innocent as you might think."

"What do you mean by that?" Tyrion set down his glass.

"I heard many things as her handmaid. She is not so naive or innocent as she might seem. She is genuinely polite and kind...but she keeps many secrets..."

"Sansa has secrets? Do tell." Tyrion didn't quite believe her but thought she was alluding to Sansa's reticent nature.

"I should not have mentioned it. It's not my place to share." Shae came to the table and poured her own wine.

Tyrion realized she had been serious. "What could she possibly be hiding from me? A kiss in the garden with some traveling singer, or a crush on a handsome knight?"

Shae only stared at him, trying to reveal nothing but Tyrion guessed it anyway.

"She's not a maid." He said with understanding and astonishment.

Shae nodded. "I suppose you might have found out eventually anyway." She shrugged.

"Well what happened? Did those men succeed in raping her on the day of the bread riots?"

"No, it wasn't like that. It was someone she loved. She loves him still but he's left King's Landing."

Tyrion drank in silence for a while, contemplating her words. "Are you going to tell me the rest of the story or do I have to beat it out of you?" He joked.

"You will not tell her you heard it from me or I will beat you." Shae said.

"My lips are sealed."

"The same night as the Greyjoy took Winterfell and burned her brothers, Sansa didin't return to her room after dinner. I prepared her bath and hoped that she had simply been held up speaking to someone or other on the way back. I waited well past an hour and was about to alert the guards when I heard her muffled screams. I was in the bath chamber so they didn't see me...it was the one you call the Hound... he had dragged her into her room with his hand over her mouth...he tossed her on the bed and tried to walk away but she sprang off the bed at him like a little wolf...she was kicking, scratching, punching and screaming at him telling him to kill her or just let her die...he was too strong for her of course so he soon caught her arms and held onto her tightly until she stopped fighting him. Then he picked her up and put her on the bed and tried to walk away again...the little wolf sprang at him again, fighting him and demanding that he kill her..."

"And what did Clegane do about that?" Tyrion was curious to know where this story was headed.

"He caught her arms again and sat in a chair, pulled her onto his lap. She couldn't run and she couldn't fight him either. She stayed sobbing in his arms for a very long time. After she had been quiet a while, he spoke to her. He called her Little Bird and told her she should not be trying to fly off towers without wings. She told him that she didn't want wings, that she wanted to fall to her death. He told her no, that she didn't want to die, that she wanted to go home. Sansa cried for a long time in his arms after that. Then he said 'I could bring you home. You'd be safe with me. I'd kill anyone who tried to hurt you.' But Sansa told him they couldn't do that because Joffrey would never stop hunting for them, they would never be safe. And that he couldn't fight whole armies that Joffrey might send. So he made another offer. 'I could kill Joffrey. You wouldn't have to marry him then. And he wouldn't be able to have you beaten if he's dead.'

Shae stopped to sip her wine. Tyrion had no idea that the Hound had this softer side.

"Sansa didn't want him to kill Joffrey." Shae went on. "She told him that he would be executed if he did that. The Hound said he didn't care, that he was willing to die for her if he must. Sansa started to cry again and told him that she couldn't bear to lose anyone else, she needed him to stay alive...they sat there, those two for hours. Sometimes he kissed her or she kissed him... but they said nothing. He left while it was still dark, picked her up and lay her sleeping on her bed."

"Are you sure it was Clegane who did all this?" Tyrion asked her, still finding it unbelievable.

"Of course I am sure. He was the large man with the burned face and there is no mistaking the sound of his voice. He was there for her many times after that. She had nightmares after the riot and one night he heard her screams and broke down the door to her room just to check on her. Other times, after her beatings, he would come in the dead of night just to hold her or help me tend the wounds. He often sat outside her door to guard her room even when he was off duty...then the night of the blackwater, I was going to say goodbye to you, I stopped at Sansa's room first. From the bath chambers I could hear them, he tried to take her with him but she wouldn't go...then after he left, she ran after him. She asked him to stay the rest of the night, to share her bed. At first he said no, that Joffrey would beat her or maybe kill her if she wasn't a maiden. They argued about it for a while. He didn't want her to get into trouble or risk her future and she didn't want to live her whole life without choices and without love...he stayed, she gave him her maidenhead, then he promised to join her brother Robb if he would have him, and come back for her if he could. She said she didn't want any promises, that life is not a song, she just needed to know that he wouldn't forget her...they professed their love...and he left..." Shae wiped away a tear.

"So that's why she won't have me. It's not because I'm disgusting but because she loves someone else." Tyrion felt relieved.

The candlelight flickered as Tyrion thought on these things...


End file.
